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Robert M. LaFollette 



HEROES OF 
INSURGENCY 

By THOMAS DREIER 




9 » » 

» » 



BOSTON 

HUMAN LIFE PUBLISHING COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 



' 



Copyright, 1 910 
By Human Life Publishing Company 



THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. 



©CIA2755 - 



FOREWORD 

IN offering this book to the public the 
publishers have made no attempt to 
cover the field of Insurgency or Progres- 
sive Republicanism, for we do not fail 
to appreciate that the movement is one 
which has enthusiastic leaders and ad- 
herents in practically every state in the 
Union. In fact, as this book goes to 
press, reports are coming in from all 
sections of the country indicating the 
success of the cause in states little sus- 
pected of insurgency, and every day 
brings to our attention some new cham- 
pion who is fighting for popular rights. 

The one aim of the publishers has 
been to present short, gripping life stories 
of the leaders of insurgency in the recent 

iii 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

sessions of Congress. These eight men 
whose stories are told in the following" 
pages were the most conspicuous in the 
legislative battles of the last session. 

In their work they have been abundantly 
aided by many others in Congress whose 
parts were somewhat less conspicuous, 
and they have been ably assisted by many 
who have been fighting for the cause on 
state issues rather than national ones. 

That these men have had much to do 
with forming the public opinion of to-day 
is true, but it is equally true that with- 
out the moral and voting support of the 
people back of them they of themselves 
could have accomplished nothing. These 
men saw a need and hastened to supply 
it. That they have succeeded is proved 
by their careers from then up to now. 

Some of these heroes have been fight- 
ing for years for true representative 

iv 



FOREWORD 

government. They have suffered pov- 
erty, have been misunderstood, have 
been called enemies of the established 
order. But always they have fought for 
the right as they understood it. That 
their vision was broad has been proved 
by results. They have been justified in 
their belief that the American citizen 
loves squareness and honesty. That 
they have held firmly to this belief, in 
spite of the years of inappreciation, com- 
pels one to think the more of them. 

The study of these brief biographies 
gives reasons why these men may be 
called " Heroes of Insurgency." Noth- 
ing that can be said here will add 
strength to the plain stories of their 
lives. The book is given out with the 
hope that these men may be helped to 
materialize more of their dreams which 
make for truer democracy, and that 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

others may be encouraged to engage in 
the fight that is no more than started. 
To the young men of America is the 
book especially dedicated. In the his- 
tories of these men they will find the 
true secret of political as well as any 
other kind of success to be real manhood, 
unswerving honesty, and patient devotion 
to an ideal. 

George Russell Stratton. 



VI 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Robert M. LaFollette n 

Albert Baird Cummins 35 

George William Norris 53 

Joseph Little Bristow 67 

Jonathan Prentiss Dolliver ... 85 

Albert J. Beveridge 103 

Victor Murdock 123 

Miles Poindexter 139 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Robert M. LaFollette Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

Albert Baird Cummins 36 

George William Norris 54 

Joseph Little Bristow 68 

Jonathan Prentiss Dolliver 86 

Albert J. Beveridge 104 

Victor Murdock 124 

Miles Poindexter 140 



ROBERT M. LaFOLLETTE 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

ROBERT M. LaFOLLETTE 

^"ir^HE most spectacular, dramatic, and 
-*■ Napoleonic of the leaders of insur- 
gency is Senator Robert Marion LaFol- 
lette, the dynamic fighter against political 
corruption/ whose work in Wisconsin at- 
tracted and held the attention of the 
nation. 

For thirty years his fighting blood has 
been coursing through his veins under the, 
urge of his desire to make popular gov- 
ernment materialize into something more 
substantial than a name. 

He was born in Primrose, an insignif- 
icant little town in Wisconsin, on June 
J 4> 1855. The wolves of poverty continu- 

13 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

ously camped before the LaFollette door. 
His father died when Robert was a young- 
ster, and the care of the family was his 
first great task. He fought against pov- 
erty as he later fought against the polit- 
ical machine — winning his way forward 
because of the gifts bestowed upon him 
by his French-Huguenot and Scotch-Irish 
ancestors. 

In the face of great obstacles he worked 
his way through Wisconsin University, 
distinguished himself and his college by 
the use of his oratorical gifts, impressed 
himself upon his fellows as a man of 
tremendous energy, of unswerving deter- 
mination, of concentration that held him 
to his tasks until completed, and time after 
time demonstrated his mastership in a 
fight where knowledge and fire were 
needed. 

He graduated in 1879, taking the LL.D. 

14 



ROBERT M. LaPOLLETTE 

degree two years later. All this time he 
was paying his own way and helping in 
the support of his family. It is said that 
he studied night and day at one period 
and took his law examinations in sixteen 
weeks — a feat that has seldom been 
equaled. 

He was admitted to the bar in 1880. 
That was his real start as a public ser- 
vant. He proved himself a brilliant trial 
lawyer. His fire, his knowledge, his abil- 
ity — the innate bigness of the man — 
manifested themselves, and his popularity 
and his business slowly but steadily 
increased. 

LaFollette never had the ability to hide 
himself. He could no more conceal his 
real worth than he could turn aside a law 
of nature. Indeed, it would have been 
nothing less than the breaking of a natu- 
ral law had he been able to remain in ob- 

15 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

scurity. As cream inevitably rises to the 
top of the milk, R. M. LaFollette, attor- 
ney, rose and attracted the attention of 
the community. 

' He would make a fine district attor- 
ney," said some. 

The political bosses, hearing clearly the 
whisper, merely smiled. They were the 
ones who chose officials, and they knew 
that this poor youth, equipped as he was 
with honesty and brilliancy, when only 
brilliancy as a machine cog was required, 
would not do. 

But the opposition of the bosses was 
just the spur young LaFollette needed. 
All the French-Huguenot and Scotch- 
Irish blood began to boil. It was and is 
a terrible combination — that fiohtine 
blood of his. It made him radiate even 
more than usual, and more attention was 
called to him. Knowing something of the 

16 



ROBERT M. LaFOLLETTE 

political corruption in his state, and more 
of the corruption of the machine politi- 
cians in his own county, LaFollette hun- 
gered for the fray. 

He was without money; the machine 
was backed by railroads, banks, electric 
roads, liquor interests, bawdy houses, and 
they owned, body and soul, those instru- 
ments commonly called molders of public 
opinion — the newspapers. He was with- 
out an organization; the machine was 
without a flaw — it was all that money 
and great brains purchasable by power 
and pelf could make. The machine 
reached deep into the political and busi- 
ness depths and also far upward. It 
seemed idiotic, asinine, foolhardy for this 
lone youngster to attempt to oppose it. 
The wise ones came to him and pointed 
out the gravestones that marked the polit- 
ical graves of those who had failed to bow 

17 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

supinely to the superior power of the 
machine. 

But all that had as little effect on La- 
Follette as the summer zephyrs have upon 
the granite of the eternal hills. The more 
opposition there was the better he liked 
it. Like Luther, he would go on if all the 
shingles on all the housetops were machine 
devils organized to bring about his defeat. 

The machine, however, did not take him 
seriously. The boss gave a few orders 
and forgot the incident. Confidence 
reigned in the machine camp. Victories 
had come into that camp for many years. 

But LaFollette did not forget. He, as 
he has ever done since, spent his time 
working. His knowledge of the great 
reform movements of history stood him 
in good stead. He knew that all strength 
comes from the people — either by active 
or passive consent. So he went direct to 

18 



ROBERT M. LaFOLLETTE 

the people. He talked to the people in 
schoolhouses, in their homes, on the road- 
ways, on their farms, in their stores and 
factories and offices — always he went 
direct. 

He was district attorney of Dane 
County, Wisconsin, from 1880 until 1884. 

Then came talk of Congress. That was 
a big task under machine opposition. 
Five counties made the district. Upon 
one only could LaFollette count. But he 
pursued the same tactics that had won 
him his district attorneyship. He went to 
the people. He riddled the record of the 
machine with verbal grapeshot. His 
earnestness, his honesty, his ability which 
had been demonstrated in his county field, 
his clean record, his dramatic defiance of 
arrogant bossism, his direct appeal to the 
people for justice — all these things won 
him vote after vote, and, when the con- 

19 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

test was over, LaFollette sat perched upon 
the prostrate composite personality of 
bossism. He remained a member of Con- 
gress from the Third Wisconsin District 
from 1885 until 1891. As a member of the 
Ways and Means Committee, he took a 
prominent part in framing the McKinley 
Bill. His greatest work, however, was 
his study of the machinery of the na- 
tional government, which was of such 
material value to him in his later state 
campaigns and in his present work in the 
Senate. 

The next thing that happened was a 
Democratic victory. This came in 1890, 
and LaFollette found himself, with the 
rest of the Republicans, out in the dreary 
cold. His little work in Congress in pre- 
venting the robbery of the Indians on the 
Menominee reservation by the lumber 
barons, his ability as shown in his work 

20 



ROBERT M. LaFOLLETTE 

on the McKinley Bill, his eloquence — 
nothing availed. It was a Democratic 
landslide that swept the Republicans out 
of power for three years. 

Having fought and whipped the ma- 
chine in the district attorneyship matter, 
and having three times defeated it in the 
congressional affair, LaFollette was look- 
ing for a bigger victory. He aspired to 
the governorship. 

For twenty years the railroads had held 
the state in their powerful and corrupting 
grip. It was once a popular belief that 
the state capitol building had been built 
facing the Northwestern depot just to 
remind the legislators of the true source 
of power. 

It was in 1896 that he offered himself 
as a candidate. Before the convention he 
had a clear majority of votes. But the 
machine opened its mint, and enough votes 

21 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

were " influenced " to defeat the doughty 
fighter. In 1898 he had a still larger 
majority, but again the trusty agents of 
the machine spent their time during the 
night to the best interests of their mas- 
ters. A third time came LaFollette. He 
would not down. Always he had been edu- 
cating the people of the state. They had 
awakened in response to his fervent plead- 
ings. He had all but one hundred and 
sixty of eleven hundred delegates pledged 
to support him. Market-place tactics could 
not overcome this lead. The machine sur- 
rendered with hypocritical smiles. 

LaFollette, in his innocence, believed 
the promises of the machine men that 
they would help him test his proposed 
reforms. But he discovered that his posi- 
tion of Governor enabled him to accom- 
plish practically nothing without a friendly 
Legislature. He discovered also that while 

22 



ROBERT M. LaFOLLETTE 

the machine men were smiling at him and 
gladdening him with offers of assistance, 
the trusty agents were packing the Legis- 
lature with machine legislators. That 
Legislature defeated all his reforms. Two 
years later, after almost heart-breaking 
work, he secured a friendly Legislature 
and the power of the machine was broken. 
Under LaFollette's leadership taxes 
were equalized, the railroads were com- 
pelled to pay in more than seven hundred 
thousand dollars more each year, a state- 
wide primary election law was secured 
which forever put an end to convention- 
hall purchasing of votes, the railroad 
commission was organized, and the people 
began to get justice in the matter of rail- 
way rates and railway service, privilege 
lost its dictatorial power, and Wisconsin 
became known as the state wherein the 
people ruled. 

23 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

How bitter was the feeling between the 
Stalwarts (the machine party) and the 
Half-Breeds (the reform party) only 
those who were in the state at the time 
can realize. Families were split in twain, 
as had been done in the Civil War, chil- 
dren were forbidden to play with children 
whose parents were in the opposite camp, 
country editors lampooned one another and 
fought fist fights to show their zeal, a 
league of newspapers was secured by the 
moneyed powers, and the reform element 
had to fight them by means of the pam-. 
phlet and the dodger. Brother was against 
brother, father against son, and even the 
women shared in the flow of love and 
hatred that surged through the length and 
breadth of the state. LaFollette to some 
was a hero to be worshiped. To others 
he was as a fiend bent on destroying the 
institutions made sacred by age and use. 

24 



ROBERT M. LaFOLLETTE 

Every effort was made to pick flaws 
in the man's personal life. Nothing could 
be said against him. He had married 
Miss Belle Case, of Baraboo, in Decem- 
ber, 1881, and his family life was ideal. 
His motives were questioned, his ambition 
was held out as a crime, his enemies called 
him a dictator bent on destroying true 
representative government by building up 
a personal machine, everything was done 
with money and influence to drive the 
people from him, but without success. 
The man was wearing himself out doing 
his work, was without wealth, was forced 
to go upon the lecture platform in order 
to pay his expenses — there was nothing 
corrupt in him. 

He resigned the governorship in order 
to become Senator in January, 1905, al- 
though he hesitated long before taking 
that step. He felt that his work in Wis- 

25 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

consin was unfinished. There was much 
he felt should be done. But the Senate 
seemed to offer an opportunity which 
would enable him to serve the greater 
number. It was only natural that his 
ambition should carry him upward. Had 
he been a smaller man, the governorship 
would have satisfied him. But nothing 
satisfies LaFollette. He is forever seeing 
things better than they are. His power 
lies in his constructive optimism. He is 
called an agitator bent on destruction. 
Nothing is more untrue. That he does 
destroy is not to be denied, but those who 
understand the man and his work know 
that he sees clearly that which ought to 
be. When he razes a tenement, he has 
contracts let for a skyscraper of steel. 

LaFollette's welcome to the Senate was 
in a way similar to that which would be 
given an Orangeman at an Irish picnic 

26 



ROBERT M. LaFOLLETTE 

on St. Patrick's Day. To the defenders 
of corruption his advent was like the 
appearance of a red rag in a cow pasture. 
They determined to sew him up. To 
their way of thinking he was dangerous. 
And he was and is. His record, from 
the time he was a poor attorney in Madi- 
son down to to-day, shows him to have 
been dangerous to all foes of representa- 
tive government. Laws are not made upon 
the floor, but in committee. To bury a 
Senator all that is necessary is to place 
him upon unimportant committees. 

The wise defenders of privilege thought 
this had been done to Senator LaFollette 
when he was placed upon the Committee 
on Potomac Flats — a committee that has 
nothing on earth to do, and which, the 
powers permitting, will report on Dooms- 
day. So far the men of privilege showed 
wisdom. But it was not until later that 

*7 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

they realized their sinfulness. Their 
judgment told them that the Committee 
on Indian Affairs was too unimportant 
to be considered, so Senator LaFollette 
was placed on that also. 

Some one had blundered. Some one had 
forgotten that in his congressional days 
he had been a defender of the Indians, 
and that he it was who had placed the 
tie on the track which derailed the plan 
of the Lumber Trust to steal millions 
from the Menominee tribe. 

Came a day when LaFollette discovered 
that the Coal Trust was after the Indian 
coal lands and that the Oil Trust was 
after the oil lands. Then the privilege 
persons awakened. They had to awaken. 
With LaFollette shooting grape and can- 
ister into the plan to rob the Indians there 
was no sleeping for the unjust. The In- 
dian steal was killed. After that, instead 

28 



ROBERT M. LaPOLLETTE 

of trying to give him so little to do as to 
allow him time for what they considered 
mischief, they gave him enough work to 
keep him and a room full of secretaries 
busy. 

With his lynx eyes boring into every 
plan presented, LaFollette made life un- 
easy for the malefactors. They tried to 
launch floods of newspaper ridicule upon 
him. They tried their most vitriolic ora- 
tory upon him. They visited him and 
his family with social ostracism. They 
dogged him with spies. But all they dis- 
covered was that the man ate but little 
more than bread and milk — on account 
of a stomach ruined in those strenuous 
student days of poverty time — and that 
his honesty was even suspicion-proof. 

Senator LaFollette introduced a bill pro- 
viding for the physical valuation of rail- 
roads. This asked that the railroads give 

29 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

the exact value of their properties. Such 
a report would enable the people to know 
just how much of the freight and pas- 
senger income represented just profit and 
how much dividends upon watered stock. 
Senator Aldrich, by clever jockeying on 
the floor and in committee, managed to 
defeat the LaFollette plan. But his 
amendments proposed as betterments to 
the Hepburn Interstate Commerce Bill 
have long since been advocated by Theo- 
dore Roosevelt and other popular cham- 
pions, and much is expected from the next 
Congress. 

Senator LaFollette is a small man with 
the head of a giant. His face is worn 
and wrinkled. He shows the strain under 
which he has worked. He has about him 
in repose an air of weariness. But in ac- 
tion he has the same old fire. His voice 
is always hoarse from much talking, yet 

30 



ROBERT M. LaFOLLETTE 

there is to be found in it a note of kind- 
ness and gentleness that draws one to the 
man. As a lecturer he is always in de- 
mand. He chooses his own subjects. He 
has his message to deliver. He desires 
to help do for the nation what he helped 
so much to do in Wisconsin. His weekly- 
newspaper carries his message where his 
voice cannot be heard — a newspaper 
which draws thousands of dollars from 
his lecture receipts every year. 

LaFollette the person and LaFollette 
as newspaper readers know him are two 
distinct individuals. Personally he is 
quiet, unassuming, somewhat careless in 
dress, soft-voiced, kindly. He lacks 
humor, it is true, but in his life has been 
little to encourage that great quality. In 
spite of his disillusioning experiences with 
politicians, he still believes in those who 
come bearing gifts. At times he is as 

3i 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

unsuspicious as a child. He is a good 
listener, breaking into a conversation with 
questions only when he feels that some 
one has some information useful to him. 
Then he probes, a long inquisitorial finger 
working corkscrew-like as he used to do 
in his district attorney days. Fatigue is 
something of which he knows nothing 
when campaigning. He is made of piano 
wires. He has delivered forty speeches 
in twenty-four hours. In one forty-eight- 
day campaign he averaged eight and a 
half hours of actual speaking daily. In 
the Senate he once spoke for eighteen 
hours to head off vicious legislation. 

His wife is, like the wife of Bryan, a 
true helpmeet. She is a trained lawyer 
and a writer. They have two sons and 
.two daughters. They live on a beautiful 
farm on the shores of Lake Mendota, a 
few miles from Madison, Wisconsin. 

32 



ROBERT M. LaFOLLETTE 

Than LaFollette there is no greater 
fighter against political corruption in the 
country. He is a political pathfinder. At 
the last Reoublican national convention 
his delegates bent on supporting him for 
the presidency were unwelcomed. That 
is his fate. Twenty years ago he was a 
wild-eyed, destructive, dangerous agita- 
tor, according to the idea of the crowd 
of that time. Since then the country has 
come up to him. He, however, is forever 
pressing forward. Whether greater vic- 
tories come to him or whether he goes 
down in defeat, he will at least have the 
joy that comes from having invested him- 
self in that work which has made this 
nation a better home for the Average 
Man. 



33 



ALBERT BAIRD CUMMINS 




Albert Baird Cummins 



ALBERT BAIRD CUMMINS 

T^7HILE their Northern cousins were 
• * screwing up their courage to take 
the step, the patriots down in Mecklen- 
burg, in the Carolinas, issued the first 
Declaration of Independence. It matters 
not that the history books give credit to 
the North. The facts tell us that the 
South was first in flinging the gauntlet in 
the face of England's king. And, to 
justify these statements in this book, let 
us here say that among the signers of 
this Mecklenburg declaration appeared 
the name of the grandfather of the 
mother of Albert Baird Cummins, In- 
surgent. It is therefore eminently right 
and proper that his name should be close 

37 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

to the top of the list of those who to-day 
are fighting for a government that will 
be more representative of the majority of 
the people. 

By right of training and business 
friendships this man should be working 
shoulder to shoulder with those regulars 
whose service to corporations is greater 
than their service to their constituents. 
For years he was a corporation attorney. 
His business associates were, for the 
most part, corporation men. During all 
his years he has been known as a good 
business man — one who possessed the 
ability to make money for himself and 
others. While he once knew poverty, 
and has never known what it is to get 
much without hard work, he has not suf- 
fered from the grinding poverty that was 
the lot of so many of his insurgent con- 
freres. Toward the last he had every- 

38 



r ALBERT BAIRD CUMMINS 

thing to gain by remaining friendly "to 
the corporations and everything to lose 
by working against them. That he chose 
the latter shows what manner of man 
he is. 

Let us, then, in order to reach his in- 
surgent days, travel somewhat rapidly 
the biographical road from the time he 
was born in Carmichaels, Pennsylvania, 
February 15, 1850, down to date. For 
mental sustenance he attended the com- 
mon schools of his native village until 
he was fourteen, then tried Green Acad- 
emy for three years, and, at seventeen, 
entered Waynesburg College for two 
years more. In September, 1869, he 
" made westing," and we find him in 
Iowa, dividing his time between Cornell 
College, a recorder's office at Elkader, 
carpenter work in the spring of 1870, an 
express office in McGregor to the spring 

39 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

of 1871, jumping eastward to Fort 
Wayne, Indiana, where he was deputy 
surveyor. Here he remained two months. 
In those days he was gifted with plenty 
of self-assurance, the ability to bluff his 
way through with little capital in the way 
of knowledge, and was not afraid to dem- 
onstrate his capacity for work. So, al- 
though he knew nothing of construction 
work, he reached for and annexed a 
position as division engineer on the old 
Cincinnati, Richmond, & Fort Wayne 
Railroad. Here he made good use of his 
knowledge of surveying and, by the time- 
honored method of securing education by 
doing, learned how to build bridges, lay 
tracks, manage wild gangs of workers, 
and perform satisfactorily all other work 
that fell to his department. We may say 
he performed his tasks satisfactorily, for, 
so the records show, he was promoted to 

40 



ALBERT BAIRD CUMMINS 

the post of assistant chief engineer before 
the end of the year. On January i, 1872, 
he became assistant chief engineer of 
the North Central Michigan, and about 
Christmas time of that same year was 
called to Denver to take a similar post on 
the Denver & Rio Grande. 

During these engineering years there 
had been ever present in him a desire to 
study law. Although success was coming 
rapidly toward him in his engineering 
work, and big money as a railroad con- 
structor was in plain sight, Cummins held 
to his idea of becoming a lawyer. We 
need not be surprised, therefore, to learn 
that he, on reaching Chicago when Den- 
ver bound, slipped into an opening which 
he found in the great law offices of 
McClellan & Hodges. Of course the 
salary attached was infinitely lower than 
that of an engineer, but Cummins was 

41 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

more in love with the law than with 
immediate wealth. With McClellan & 
Hodges he remained two years, being 
admitted to the bar when twenty-three 
years old, in 1874. That same year he 
was married to Miss Ida L. Gallery, of 
Eaton Rapids, Michigan. Until 1878 he 
made his home in Chicago, practicing as 
attorney. 

Iowa was then sending out calls for 
strong men in all departments of the 
world's work. Cummins heard. He left 
his Chicago practice, and with his brother, 
J. C. Cummins, opened a law office in Des 
Moines. This partnership continued un- 
til November, 1881, when he was invited 
by Judge Wright to become a member of 
the leading law firm of the city. Judge 
Wright was one of the big men of his 
time. His law business was successful. 
Its nature may be learned from the fact 

42 



ALBERT BAIRD CUMMINS 

that later his son, Thomas, retired from 
the firm to become the representative of 
the Chicago, Rock Island, & Pacific in 
Chicago. Cummins was, to use a street 
phrase, " in right." 

For years the Western farmers had 
been at the mercy of the great barb-wire 
trust. Independent companies had tried 
to start up for the purpose of relieving 
the farmer, but by lawsuits and other 
means the trust had killed them off one 
by one. In spite of his affiliations with 
the powerful, Cummins undertook, in 
1 88 1, a fight that lasted for five years 
and ended in the decisive defeat of the 
Washburn-Moen Company, the wire com- 
pany that had for years charged the 
farmers all the traffic would bear. This 
fight made Cummins a character with a 
West-wide reputation. He won the name 
of a friend of the people. Not only did 

43 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

his fight win him popularity, but his abil- 
ity, as demonstrated in the barb-wire 
fiorht, won his firm business that other- 
wise would never have come to them. His 
standing among the members of his pro- 
fession we learn by discovering that he 
was for years the president of the Polk 
County Bar Association. 

The political germ was in the air in 
those days just as it is to-day. Cummins 
naturally interested himself in political 
work. Naturally, as a leading lawyer, he 
was consulted. But he asked for noth- 
ing for himself until 1887, when, with 
many of his party leaders against him, 
he was elected to the Assembly. The 
prohibition wave was then sweeping 
across the Middle West, and to it Cum- 
mins opposed his strength. Instead of 
prohibition he demanded local option and 
hisrher licenses. To take this stand in 



44 



ALBERT BALRD CUMMINS 

those days called for backbone of the 
unbending kind. 

In the Legislature Cummins climbed 
forward because of his work in revising 
the laws governing railroads. His work 
was so fair to both railroads and state 
that people wondered how it was possible 
for a railroad attorney to do as he did. 
An Iowa newspaper editor, in showing 
how suspicious many were of the Cum- 
mins honesty, tells how a party of manu- 
facturers and merchants called upon him 
to support a bill providing for more equi- 
table charges on short hauls. He promised 
to support it. A few days later the same 
committee called and asked him to with- 
draw his support. " Why have you 
changed ? " he asked. " That man, Cum- 
mins," they answered, " a railroad attor- 
ney, is the bill's father, and there must be 
something hidden in it that is bad for 

45 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

us." But the bill was passed, and those 
people learned that the bill was square 
and aboveboard and for the best interests 
of all concerned. 

With the Democrats in power in 1892, 
the Republican State Committee called 
Cummins to preside at the state conven- 
tion. The speech he made at the opening 
of the convention swept the delegates off 
their feet and later proved one of the 
most powerful pieces of campaign liter- 
ature. Following that, he was alternate- 
at-large to the national convention at 
Minneapolis, and, later that same year, 
another convention chose him elector-at- 
large. In 1896 he was sent to St. Louis 
as a delegate, and was there chosen a 
member of the national committee and 
held that post for four years. Previous 
to this, in 1894, he had been a candidate 
for United States Senator but was de- 

46 



ALBERT BAIRD CUMMINS 

feated. Later, when Senator Gear died 
and a successor had to be appointed, 
Cummins thought that the appointment 
would come to him, but Jonathan Pren- 
tiss Dolliver was chosen instead. Then, 
to make up for slights given him by the 
political ring, he went direct to the people 
and became Governor in 1902; and so 
well did he serve them, he was sent back 
three times by an overwhelming vote of 
the people of his state. In November, 
1908, he was elected to the United States 
Senate to fill a vacancy caused by the 
death of Senator W. B. Allison. In Jan- 
uary, 1909, he was re-elected for the term 
beginning March 4. His Senate terra 
will end in 1915. 

We have now cleared away all the bio- 
graphical underbrush and may look at the 
man himself for a moment. He is one 
inch under six feet in height, has broad 

47 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

shoulders, a deep chest, stands erect, is 
crowned with iron-gray hair, has eyes 
that look out humorously and kindly, 
dresses as a successful man should dress, 
and cannot escape the charge of being 
handsome. Like Ben Adhem, it may be 
written of him that he loves his fellow- 
men. He and Mrs. Cummins are great 
entertainers and enjoy mixing with other 
social beings. Socially, as well as for the 
good of the entire state, he made an ideal 
governor. 

Lest what has been written thus far 
may lead the casual reader to believe 
Senator Cummins a corporation attorney 
first, last, and all the time, let it be here 
stated that than the railroads Senator 
Cummins enjoys no bitterer enemies. 
And here is the initial reason. In his 
Assembly days he proved himself no easy 
man to handle for tooling purposes. In 

48 



ALBERT BAIRD CUMMINS 

his political work after his Assembly days 
he failed to become more tractable. When 
he aspired to the Senate, railroad influ- 
ences defeated him. When he sought the 
governorship, railroad money again op- 
posed him. But all this time the opposi- 
tion was the opposition of influences that 
did not come out strongly in the open 
against him. 

The fire was kindled during guberna- 
torial days that smoked out the animals 
that in the past had chosen to hide in the 
hole under the political machine. With 
the kindly assistance of J. W. Blythe, at- 
torney and representative of the Great 
.'Northern and The Chicago, Burlington, 
& Quincy railroads, what is known as 
" The Molsberry Bill " had been nursed 
through the Assembly and Senate. On 
the Governor's table it lay for signature. 
To the Governor came politicians, busi- 

49 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

ness men, manufacturers, railroad repre- 
sentatives. They called for the signature. 
The Governor refused. The bill was in- 
tended to " New Jerseyize " the state. It 
placed no limit on the debts a railroad 
might contract. Cummins, seeing the bill 
through eyes made keen by years of legal 
prying, met the railroad men on their own 
ground and answered argument for argu- 
ment. It was bad for the state, therefore 
it must be vetoed. And it was vetoed. 

Had he signed that bill the state would 
not have blamed him much. It had been 
passed by the legislative representatives 
of the people. It had the support of the 
biggest business men and manufacturers. 
The bosom friends of the Governor, his 
political helpers, the men upon whom he 
had depended for his legal business — all 
these demanded that he sign it. Yet this 
man, knowing the bill to be bad for the 

50 



ALBERT BAIRD CUMMINS 

state and the country, dared to stand out 
against all this pressure. That act, per- 
haps more than any other act in his life, 
showed him in his true colors and did 
more than all his talking to send him back 
to the Governor's chair for three terms. 

As a governor Cummins proved himself 
a master. During his formative years he 
had been carpenter, school-teacher, clerk, 
express messenger, surveyor, railroad 
builder. He therefore had been in touch 
with men in all departments of work. He 
knew the point of view of the common 
folks. On top of this he had the training 
that comes to the successful attorney. He 
had met and talked with and studied big 
men. He knew their point of view. With 
this knowledge stored away in his mind 
he was fit to render just judgments. That 
he did render just judgments is shown by 
his entire public career. 

5i 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

As a Republican he is not for free trade, 
but he is not in favor of the tariff that 
has been manufactured for the benefit of 
special interests. He believes in the elec- 
tion of United States Senators by direct 
primary. He believes in the federal con- 
trol of corporations. And, what is of 
greatest interest in these times, he is 
against the Aldrich-Cannon rule of the 
national government. The record shows 
him to be among the most pronounced 
insurgent leaders in the Senate. 

Personally Senator Cummins is a lik- 
able, friend-making, friend-holding indi- 
vidual. In the face of his record no 
words will add to his praise as a friend 
of popular government. He has suc- 
ceeded in business and has succeeded in 
life because he has, as Lincoln advised, 
done right as he understood it. 



52 



GEORGE WILLIAM NORRIS 




George William Norris 



GEORGE WILLIAM NORRIS 

RIGHT at the start of any biographical 
sketch of George William Norris it 
is well to say that he is, above all other 
things, a normal man. Neither in his life 
nor in himself is there anything that wor- 
shipers of the Napoleonic would dub dra- 
matic. His style of skittering through the 
political sky is not meteoric. There are in 
him the calmness, the regularity, the abso- 
lute certainty of the moon. Unlike La- 
Follette, he cannot point to heart-breaking 
poverty in youth nor to the bitter opposi- 
tion of machine politicians of the vulture 
breed. From the time he was a farm lad in 
Sandusky County, Ohio, up to and includ- 
ing the time he was elected to Congress 
from the Fifth Nebraska District in 1903, 

55 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

he has been as regular in his political be- 
liefs as regularity itself. He has not been 
a voice in the political wilderness proclaim- 
ing a new era. 

However, in order that we may not sus- 
pect this man of being without an individ- 
uality of his own, let us here condense his 
biographical data into a paragraph and 
then take up those facts with which we are 
concerned and discover for ourselves what 
manner of man he really is. We find, if 
we care to go back, that he was born on a 
farm in Sandusky County, Ohio, July n, 
1 86 1, thus managing to evade any tempta- 
tion to enlist in that great unpleasantness 
known as the Civil War. His father, like 
most farmers, was not unduly burdened 
with wealth, and George worked out for 
farmers during the farm-working season, 
attending school for but a few months 
each winter. 

56 



GEORGE WILLIAM NORMS 

The short winter schooling, however, 
awakened his desire for some other career 
than that offered by the farm. He deter- 
mined to move forward. Upon finishing 
the country school and his self-selected 
studies at home, he became a country 
school-teacher in order to earn money for 
a higher education. Within a couple of 
years he had saved enough out of his 
scanty earnings to enter Baldwin Univer- 
sity at Berea, Ohio. Later he shifted to 
the Northern Indiana Normal School be- 
cause of the opportunities that institution 
offered young men without golden spoons 
which might be pawned. By scrimping, 
saving, and pinching he managed to work 
his way through the ordinary academic 
course, and followed that by borrowing 
enough money to carry him through the 
law school. He was admitted to the bar 
in 1883. With characteristic carefulness 

57 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

he did not plunge directly into the uncer- 
tainties of the legal profession. He taught 
school for another year in order to earn 
money for a law library and a few dollars 
extra to tide him over the waiting period 
which was to be expected at the beginning 
of his law work. 

The call of the West came to him about 
this time, and we find him, in 1885, trek- 
king across the country to Nebraska. His 
original intention was to settle down to the 
slow and steady practice of law. But in 
the Nebraska of those days there was little 
opportunity for lawyers who failed to woo 
the goddess of politics. Norris, in his 
office at Beaver City, saw the light, and, 
almost before the paint on his shingle was 
dry, became prosecuting attorney for Fur- 
nas County. This position, coupled with 
other business that came in its trail, en- 
abled him to marry Miss Pluma Lashley 

58 



GEORGE WILLIAM NORRIS 

in 1890, and, with a home as an anchor- 
age, he settled down with the air of one 
whose moving days were over. 

Ten years after leaving Ohio — in 1895, 
to be exact — we find him, during the Pop- 
ulist turmoil, taking his place as district 
judge after beating his opponent by a bare 
majority of six votes in a district made up 
of seven counties. He was re-elected dis- 
trict judge in -1901, and resigned in 1904 
to make the race for Congress. 

Norris has always been a regular Re- 
publican. When he first went to Congress, 
he held the ordinary provincial idea of the 
importance of his position. But it did not 
take him more than one term to discover 
that there was something not so square in 
Washington as it should be according to 
Nebraska ideals. That a Congressman, 
especially a new one, is of but little more 
value than a figure on a chessboard, when 

59 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

viewed through Washington glasses, was 
something of a disillusioning surprise to 
Norris. When he returned home, he said 
to Lou Cone, his political helper, " There 
is something wrong with the system. I 
don't know what it is, and I don't know 
that I can do anything to correct it, but 
some sort of house-cleaning is needed 
down there." That was the first sign he 
had shown of irregularity. 

During the campaign of 1908 the reg- 
ulars and the insurgents were beginning 
to bestir themselves over the matter of 
Cannonism. Norris stated very definitely 
where he stood. " I am against Cannon," 
he announced in his speeches, " but I 
should vote for him for Speaker in pref- 
erence to any Democrat. To elect a Dem- 
ocrat for the place would tie up all legis- 
lation and render the work of Congress 
futile and ineffective. I am a Republican. 

60 



GEORGE WILLIAM NORRIS 

My quarrel is not with the party, but with 
the men who are using it to advance their 
own selfish ends." 

That speech showed him to be a Repub- 
lican with backbone enough to stand up 
and announce that there were men within 
the party — men in responsible positions 
— who were unworthy of trust. He 
showed that he realized that changes 
would have to be made, but he believed 
that the changes could be made by the 
party members themselves. The Demo- 
crats, of course, scattered a tremendous 
slush fund over the district in an effort to 
defeat him. Even Mr. Bryan thought him 
of enough importance to come in and per- 
sonally assist in the attempt to end his 
congressional career. In spite of all this 
opposition, Norris ran seven hundred 
and sixty-nine votes ahead of Mr. Taft 
and emerged with a small but safe ma- 

61 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY, 

jority. Mr. Bryan carried the district 
for himself. 

Thus it was that George W. Norris was 
on hand to lead the onslaught upon the 
House of Cannon last March. In the news 
dispatches of those strenuous fighting 
days Norris found his name heralded as 
leader. All this came as a surprise, just 
as it surprised those folks who had always 
known him as a quiet, friendly, peaceful 
sort of person. He had only done what 
he thought was the right thing to do. He 
felt that Cannon should be opposed, there- 
fore he went in and opposed him. He was 
not looking for personal glory. As a reg- 
ular sort of man, he wanted to do that 
which would insure the success of his 
party. If to clean the party it was 
necessary to administer chastisement to 
folks of the Cannon school, well, much 
as he hated the turmoil, Norris was 

62 



GEORGE WILLIAM NORRIS 

ready to do his part in the administer- 
ing business. 

Financially Norris is also fit to take his 
place as an average man. In his early 
Nebraska days he had settled at Beaver 
City because that place promised to make 
good the promises of his boomers. The 
promise was not kept, and Norris moved 
to McCook, which is in Redwillow County. 
There he lives in a small, unpretentious 
home, with a green lawn about it and pro- 
tected from the sun by shade trees of early 
inhabitant age. He owns this home, a 
couple of vacant lots, three thousand dol- 
lars' worth of stock in a Masonic Temple 
that has never paid any dividends and 
which will never pay more than five per 
cent, a hotel at Beaver City that earns 
enough to pay the taxes, and that ends it. 

McCook is rather proud of the family 
of Congressman Norris. The present 

63 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

Mrs. Norris was the chum of the first 
Mrs. Norris, who died in 1901, leaving 
three daughters, Hazel, aged 16, Marion, 
aged 13, and Gertrude, aged 9. The 
Norrises are typical small townfolks. 
Like a country bank cashier, Congress- 
man Norris spends his loafing hours at 
home, taking his mental exercise while 
mowing the lawn and relieving himself 
mentally by resting with the characters 
Dickens touched into life. Political op- 
ponents have never been able to discover 
any taints in the Norris career. Morally 
and financially he has been regular. He 
has always been a sort of square deal 
person. He has no hesitancy about tell- 
ing the truth. 

During the hard times of the early nine- 
ties, when Eastern loan companies, unable 
to realize on investments, were foreclos- 
ing mortgages on Nebraska homesteads, 

64 



GEORGE WILLIAM NORRIS 

it was Norris who helped many a man 
save his home. At that time he was dis- 
trict judge. A degree of confirmation by 
the court was a necessary formality in 
obtaining possession of the land. Before 
granting any decrees, Norris always per- 
sonally investigated. If the man was 
honestly trying to pay but was unable to 
do so on account of the times, Norris re- 
fused to help the companies dispossess 
him. This action of his, done at a time 
when it was not even prospective political 
capital, helped hold many a vote at a later 
day. 

In this story k nothing dramatic, noth- 
ing unusual, nothing exceptional. The 
Norris life has flowed along in a smooth 
current. His trials have been no greater 
than those that come to thousands of 
average men. His life has been that of 
the average man. For that reason he is 

65 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

fit for the work he is doing — he is a fit 
representative of average men. He pos- 
sesses great ability of the steady, plod- 
ding, persistent sort. He is not spectacu- 
lar, but he is sure. He is dependable, 
reliable. And, as his constituents have 
discovered, the best ability is reliability. 



66 



JOSEPH LITTLE BRISTOW 




Joseph Little Bristow 



JOSEPH' LITTLE BRISTOW 

BORN in a log cabin in Wolfe County, 
Kentucky, during one of those times 
that tried men's souls, Joseph Little Bris^- 
tow stands before the public stamped with 
the influences of heredity. His father, 
the son of a Methodist minister, was a 
school-teacher until the Union called to 
him to substitute the musket for the birch. 
It was on July 22, 1861, that Joseph was 
given to the world. The influences of the 
ante-bellum period played upon the mother 
and materialized in the son. Both parents 
being rigid religionists, holding to justice 
as they did to life, their training of their 
child made for righteousness as they un- 
derstood it. They never learned to com- 
promise with injustice and wrongdoing. 

69 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

Raised in poverty during those painful 
formative years of the new country's 
growth, young Bristow became inoculated 
with the fighting germs that have so often 
stirred him into that activity so detrimen- 
tal to the peace and happiness of public 
evilists. 

After the war, the work of the school- 
master substituted for the service of a 
Methodist minister, Bristow's father 
earned the meager income necessary to 
meet the almost insignificant living ex- 
penses of their simple family life. Pov- 
erty was an ever-present visitor in the 
Bristow home, ease was a thing unknown. 
Yet to these people, sustained as they were 
by an ever-burning religious faith, pov- 
erty was not looked upon as a galling bur- 
den. They worked as well as they knew 
how with the materials at hand, develop- 
ing strength of character with endurance 

70 



JOSEPH LITTLE BRISTOW 

of body each day as they went along. 
Knowing something of the parents, it is 
easy for one to understand the early train- 
ing Joseph Bristow received. 

Pioneer folks find the way to marriage 
an easy one, so we need not be surprised 
to find young Joseph, the down just dark- 
ening his cheeks, plunging into matrimony 
on November n, 1879, ms trip being 
shared by Margaret A. Hendrix, of Flem- 
ing County, Kentucky. Like so many 
others whose names later became stars in 
the firmament of insurgency, Bristow 
heard the call of the West and found his 
way to Elk County, Kansas, that same 
marriage year. A farm furnished a pre- 
carious living for a space, but the life of 
the farmer was not to the liking of one 
whose forebears found delight in educat- 
ing men. 

At twenty-one, then, Bristow moved to 

7i 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

Baldwin, Kansas, for the reason that 
Baker University honored that village 
with its presence. Expenses were met by 
the time-honored expedient of taking stu- 
dent boarders. Mrs. Bristow shared her 
husband's ambition to one day become, like 
his father and grandfather, a Methodist 
minister. She was willing to undertake 
the work of helping her husband secure 
his education, even though she must have 
known that the minister's life, as well as 
the life of the minister's wife, is ever one 
of sacrifice and self-abnegation. The 
country owes much to the brave little 
woman who shared the educational pio- 
neer days of the future public servant. 

At college it is not always what the cur- 
riculum offers that proves of greatest 
value. Education is best secured by doing 
things. In college Bristow was a doer. 
Fraternities and athletics were of less im- 

72 



JOSEPH LITTLE BRISTOW 

portance in those heathenish days than 
they have become in our more enlightened 
times, Instead of the social joys of fra- 
ternities which are organized to exclude, 
and of college athletics so much magnified 
by the modern student, Bristow and his 
fellows found their surplus energy outlet 
in engineering the destinies of two literary 
societies. One was called the Athenian, 
and its hated rival was the Biblical. No 
prize will be given those who guess that 
Bristow belonged to the latter. 

One needs to know but little about col- 
leges to understand that the successful col- 
lege politician is about as wily a person as 
the gentlemen who dominate the govern- 
ing business in our big cities. In those 
college days Bristow was the leader in 
political affairs. More than once did the 
noble Athenians bite the political dust at 
the Bristow command. He speedily be- 

73 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

came an organizer of men. His grasp of 
detail and his power of welding this detail 
into an harmonious whole placed him at 
the top. In the mimic school world Bris- 
tow fought battles that taught him lessons 
that have since stood him and his country 
in good stead. 

In 1884 he organized a Blaine and Lo- 
gan club, and rounded up under his ban- 
ner fifty-one of the fifty-two voters in the 
school. To accomplish this, after all the 
school fights he had engineered, was no 
slight task. To his teachers Bristow was 
known as a student who dug the heart out 
of every subject he studied, yet they also 
were forced to shake their heads sadly on 
all election days over the absence of their 
strenuous pupil. To keep Bristow in 
school on election day called for teachers 
capable of performing one of the labors of 
Hercules. 

74 



JOSEPH LITTLE BRISTOW 

In addition to boarding fellow students, 
Bristow earned money by serving as a 
persuasive book agent, farm helper, man- 
of-all-work, and editor of the local news- 
paper. Upon his graduation in 1886, his 
dream of serving in the ministry having 
been changed for the desire to serve in 
politics, he was elected clerk of the Dis- 
trict Court of Douglas County. To se- 
cure votes he borrowed money and hired 
a horse to carry him to every voter in the 
district. So little money did he have that 
it is said he was forced to take his choice 
between buying an overcoat or a diction- 
ary. If he had not chosen the latter — 
But why speculate? 

During his clerkship days he was chosen 
president of the Young Men's Republican 
Club of Lawrence. In 1888 he was re- 
elected to his court office. All the time his 
eyes had been open to things political. He 

75 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

stumped the state for Harrison during 
the presidential campaign, and annexed 
the reputation necessary to secure him a 
position as secretary of the Republican 
State Committee. He next became pri- 
vate secretary to Governor Morrill, follow- 
ing that with an attempt to connect with 
election to Congress. After a strenuous 
campaign he was defeated by a small ma- 
jority. During the days that the political 
sun failed to shine upon him he became 
a newspaper man. For instance, from 
1890 to 1895, he owned and edited " The 
Salina Daily Republican," left that for 
" The Ottawa Herald," dropped the pen 
for politics, and did not again take it up 
until February 1, 1903, when he bought 
" The Salina Republican- Journal." 

The energy and skill of the man won 
the attention of President McKinley dur- 
ing the great campaign of 1896, and, in 

76 



JOSEPH LITTLE BRISTOW 

spite of the strong - protests of the machine 
politicians in Kansas and Washington, 
Bristow was offered and accepted the 
position of Fourth Assistant Postmaster- 
General. Bristow knew then that this 
office promised him little honor, small pay, 
and much hard work. But he also knew 
that it would teach him, as few other posi- 
tions would, the political condition of the 
country in general and of the workings 
of the government at Washington in 
particular. 

As assistant to the Postmaster-General 
he dealt with the removal and appointment 
of thousands of little postmasters through- 
out the country, the postal secret service, 
and thousands of little jobs that would 
kill any man not in love with the work of 
mastering details. It was while doing his 
daily detail work that he discovered the 
irregularities in the management of the 

77 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

postal service, particularly in Cuba. For 
a decade a systematic robbery of the gov- 
ernment had been carried on by postal 
employees and officials. The loot had been 
shared with men high up in the ranks of 
the Republican party. To attempt to pun- 
ish these men was to invite political sui- 
cide. They were entrenched behind polit- 
ical power and unlimited wealth. The 
great newspapers were at their command. 
Bristow knew this. But never yet had a 
Bristow compromised with corruption. 
He was not in love with the work of fer- 
reting out criminals, but if duty sent him 
to that task he was determined to do what 
justice to the service demanded done. 

The country knows what he did witli 
the backing of President McKinley in the 
matter of the Cuban postal frauds. He 
worked with fifty trained investigators 
for nearly a year during the Roosevelt 

78 



JOSEPH LITTLE BRISTOW 

regime investigating the post-offices in the 
United States. One thousand offices were 
investigated, some of the records being 
studied for ten years rearward. Bristow 
read two hundred thousand typewritten 
pages of reports, analyzed them, collated 
the facts, and then edited the result into a 
report of only ten thousand words. Of 
this report President Roosevelt said, " Mr. 
Bristow's report is a record of as impor- 
tant bit of investigating work as has been 
done under the government." 

It would have been a great work had 
Bristow done it with the assistance of all 
the government employees. But when it 
is known that the report was made with 
the corruptionists of great wealth and 
great power arrayed against him, this 
work becomes monumental. Every effort 
was made to call Bristow from his task. 
Frantic officials, rotten with corruption, 

79 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

fled to their protectors higher up for help. 
Political machinery, newspapers, detec- 
tives — all forces were used. But Bris- 
tow held firm. He went forward with the 
precision and force of a hydraulic drill. 
He was backed by a President who loved 
a fight for the square deal. He made his 
report in the face of the objections of 
leaders of the party he had served all his 
life. Promises of rich political gifts failed 
to swerve him from the truth. 

Because President Roosevelt needed a 
special commissioner to investigate the 
problems connected with the Panama 
Railroad, Bristow resigned in January, 
1905. His report was made in August of 
the same year, and practically all his 
recommendations were accepted by Con- 
gress. He again visited Panama to per- 
form duties under Secretary of War Taft 
and was praised for his accuracy and in- 

80 



JOSEPH LITTLE BRISTOW 

telligence. In 1908 he made another re- 
port for Secretary Taft, leaving his news- 
paper in other hands in order to render the 
government this special service. 

With the machine against him, and all 
the Republican corruptionists all over the 
country doing what they could to defeat 
him, Bristow climbed into the Senate by 
defeating Senator Long. Only the direct 
primaries saved him. Had the old conven- 
tion system obtained, he would have been 
snowed under by the freezing wealth of 
the corporations. By going direct to the 
people — who remembered his work in the 
postal scandals — he won the votes needed 
to destroy many an important cog in the 
machine of his state. He told his fellow 
citizens that railway rates should be based 
on the cost of service to the railroads and 
not upon the value of the service to the 
public, and that all the railroads of the 

81 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

nation should be under the control of a 
national bureau with power to make thor- 
ough investigations of the physical value 
of the railroad property, the cost of opera- 
tion, etc., and upon its findings base just 
rates. 

Bristow is personally fearless. It is re- 
lated that, with a handful of companions, 
he rushed into a mob, rescued a negro, 
swung him into a doorway, took the noose 
from his neck, and then caused the mob to 
disperse. To the evilists he is cold, piti- 
less, and insatiable. He seems to be jus- 
tice incarnate. In performance of his 
duty he recognizes neither friend nor foe. 
He possesses no genius for friendship, 
yet those friends he has are grappled to 
him by hoops of steel. He does not win 
a sunshiny personal popularity, but he 
does win votes because the people know he 
is honest and absolutely sincere. Children 

82 



JOSEPH LITTLE BRISTOW 

like him. Than that there is no greater 
compliment. His personal life is open to 
the closest investigation. Had he pos- 
sessed a closet skeleton, the sleuths of the 
enemies stirred up in postal scandal days 
would have discovered and uncovered it. 

Working almost alone, he has won and 
held the friendship of McKinley, Roose- 
velt, and Taft. A man who can do this 
must be something of a man. He suc- 
ceeds because of his genius for work. In 
his newspaper days he was at his office at 
four o'clock in the morning and stayed 
there all day. For recreation he calls for 
more work. 

In personal appearance he is tall, un- 
gainly, gaunt, has a stoop in the shoulders 
from much work at the desk, swings along 
with an awkward stride, never appears 
without a frock coat, — a liking probably 
inherited from ministerial ancestors, — 

83 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

has hazel eyes, a large mouth, and a tu- 
multuous sort of voice. He is in no sense 
an orator. The polish of the platform 
star is not his. Yet he holds his hearers 
because of his deep sincerity, his imposing 
array of facts so carefully marshaled and 
so cleverly handled, his knowledge of gov- 
ernment manifested in his editorials and 
his speeches and gleaned from reading 
heavy books far into the night, and a per- 
sonality that can be the possession of no 
man who is not living a life that is and 
ever has been " on the square." 



84 



JONATHAN PRENTISS DOLLIVER 




Jonathan Prentiss Dolliver 



JONATHAN PRENTISS 
DOLLIVER 

f~\ NLY by adoption is Senator Dolliver 
^-^ a Westerner. And yet there be wise 
folks who will say that Iowa is this big 
man's home because the spirit of the man 
is Iowan and would fit nowhere else. 
That he was born in West Virginia is 
most true. To be more exact we may say 
that he was born near Ringwood in Pres- 
ton County on February 6, 1858, and, if 
the bread-winning occupation of the father 
be of interest, we may say that he was a 
minister who, while without wealth, was 
able to send his sturdy son to the village 
schools and provide him with that food 
which is essential to a youngster bent on 

87 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

becoming a man with a sound body, fit 
to house a mind of more than average 
worth. 

It may have been in response to that 
law which compels cream to find its way 
to the top of the milk that the Dolliver 
youth left what was then the somewhat 
indolent and sleepy South and penetrated 
into what seemed the distant West. True 
it is that this West was east of the Mis- 
sissippi River, but that the journey was 
somewhat of the nature of an adventure 
to the eager-eyed Southerner is something 
we may well believe. However, before 
we do more than make this mention of 
the migratory tendency of the youth, let 
us hark back to the boyhood days and in 
a somewhat more leisurely manner jour- 
ney upward to these more strenuous in- 
surgent days. 

Like many another man who has accom- 

88 



JONATHAN PRENTISS DOLLIVER 

plished deeds worth while, Senator Dolli- 
ver is forced to pay tribute to the influ- 
ence of his mother. It is said that one 
of the essentials of the far-seeing young- 
ster on fame bent is to select most care- 
fully the maternal parent. Doubtless in 
the Dolliver case the gods were kind. 
Whatever the cause may be, we find the 
mother Dolliver a woman of exceptional 
strength of character. For her son she 
was, as most mothers are, optimistically 
ambitious. She imagined a great career 
for him, but, being practical in her dream- 
ing, she went a step farther than the im- 
agining and provided more materially for 
the realization of her dream. 

Besides endowing her son with those 
physical attributes that in Senate days 
sent him over the more silken Senators 
of regular political faith, she strength- 
ened his mind by those true teachings 

89 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

that spring, seemingly without observing 
the ordinary laws of growth, from the 
innermost being of the mother mind. Not 
only did she give him that training which 
later made for what may be called great- 
ness, but she gave him at birth a heritage 
that environment and training could never 
supply. And then, after the village schools 
had yielded up their mental harvest for 
the enrichment of the Dolliver brain 
granary, this mother cut corners in her 
housekeeping arrangements in order to 
save the money needed for advancing her 
son still farther up the steps leading to 
the temple of knowledge. 

From the Ringwood school we find 
young Dolliver going to the state univer- 
sity at Morgantown. In those days this 
university was but little more than a semi- 
nary. It was, however, the best offering 
that presented itself that would match 

90 



JONATHAN PRENTISS DOLLIVER 

with the purse of the minister's son. Cer- 
tain it is that the boy here made much 
of his opportunities. Undamned with 
much money that would have led him 
from the paths over which the professors 
ever seek to guide the stumbling steps of 
the student, young Dolliver had little to 
do but study. Besides, he knew that at 
home his mother was making sacrifices 
and that it therefore behooved him to ac- 
quire as much knowledge as the institu- 
tion would permit in the shortest possible 
time. So well did he work that we find 
him graduating at the callow age of sev- 
enteen. Then came the Western journey. 
To lift the burden from the maternal 
shoulders, as well as to help himself up- 
ward toward those heights which he, after 
his mother's pointing, already saw clearly, 
Dolliver left the mountains and migrated 
to the plains. We find him teaching school 

9i 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

at Victor Center, Illinois. At this place it 
had for years been the custom of the big 
boys to amuse themselves and the smaller 
pupils by engaging in that ancient rite 
known as " licking the teacher." History 
tells us that the custom was reversed in 
this Victor Center school immediately upon 
the advent of one Jonathan Prentiss Dol- 
liver. It is also a matter of record that 
never before did the pupils make such 
progress along learning's path, and also 
that the teacher never found it necessary 
to appeal from the much used frontier 
law that might makes right. He was able 
to take care of himself even before he 
had slipped out of his teens. 

Two years after these physical and 
mental triumphs we discover our South- 
erner carrying away the legal knowledge 
needed for the practice of law. During 
those school times he had been preparing 

92 



JONATHAN PRENTISS DOLLIVER 

himself for his profession. The law had 
been chosen. Thus it was that in 1878 
Fort Dodge, Iowa, reached out and 
claimed him for her own, arranging mat- 
ters so that he climbed right speedily into 
local prominence. 

Away back in those youthful village 
school times it was admitted by all know- 
ing persons that young Dolliver could talk. 
It is related, although the story has not 
been properly verified, that the boy came 
across a copy of the Congressional 
Record and was carried away by the ora- 
torical offerings therein contained. From 
the same source one learns that vounsr 
Dolliver made up his mind to one day fill 
congressional chambers with the vibra- 
tions of his own voice. Be this true or 
untrue, it is certain that one may not 
trace the Dolliver biography far to the 
rear without finding much evidence which 

93 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

compels one to believe that a well-defined 
path was followed. 

The law business in Fort Dodge, as has 
been related, grew and prospered. Young 
Dolliver was a perfect tornado of lan- 
guage. His voice was ready to be heard 
with or without provocation. He was 
not cursed with too much modesty and 
waited not for some loiterer to upturn 
the bushel under which his light was 
hidden. He took care of his own illumi- 
nations, letting his light so shine as to 
attract the attention of those desirable 
folks who hold in their hands the gifts 
of offices. It happens that the law and 
politics are so closely allied that one can 
scarcely engage in the first without at 
least flirting with the second. 

It was during those heated times around 
1884 when Mr. Blaine hunted the White 
House that Jonathan Prentiss Dolliver 

94 



JONATHAN PRENTISS DOLLIVER 

first stood forth bidding for the gaze of 
many men. He made speeches from every 
unoccupied stump in the surrounding ter- 
ritory, and would have stood high with 
the administration of Mr. Blaine had not 
that gentleman been defeated by a foolish 
alliteration of " Rum, Romanism, and 
Rebellion." Mr. Blaine had heard Mr. 
Dolliver speak and said that in a later 
day Mr. Dolliver would be heard from. 
Mr. Blaine has been proven a good 
prophet. 

After the Blaine defeat there came a 
wait of half a dozen years for the young 
lawyer. This was not bad. It gave him 
opportunity to fill his mind with those 
enriching facts which have in our own 
day been used with such telling effect. 
In 1890, when he was elected to the 
House, he was so well fitted to represent 
his constituents that he remained a repre- 

95 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

sentative until 1901. It is likely that he 
would still be a House member had he not 
in 1900 received the senatorial chair left 
vacant by the death of Senator J. H. 
Gear. This appointment, if we are to 
be exact, came on August 23. He was 
elected in his own right in 1902 and again 
in 1907. His term will, therefore, end in 

1913- i**' 1 f "' 

He entered the House close upon the 

heels of the McKinley Bill and that ex- 
travagant Congress which earned for 
itself the title of "The Billion Dollar 
Congress," and which had the political 
effect of changing the congressional com- 
plexion from Republican to Democratic. 
This placed Mr. Dolliver with the minor- 
ity and enabled him to learn the Washing- 
ton game without being forced to play it 
to his own cost. After four years of 
Democratic rule the Republicans once 

96 



JONATHAN PRENTISS DOLLIVER 

more came into power and Mr. Dolliver 
began to see light ahead. 

One great quality this big Westerner 
possesses which has stood him well in 
times gone by, — he knows how to wait. 
Although bulking big in both brain and 
brawn, Mr. Dolliver made no great at- 
tempt to wrest the control of things out 
of the hands of the oldsters who had been 
in Washington for twenty years or more. 
He waited for the right time — for the 
time when his offering was needed. He 
looked after the interests of his constit- 
uents so well that he was sent back five 
successive times — surely often enough 
to prove that in his own district he was 
recognized as a man of worth. Had he 
been a mere machine man, it is likely 
that he would have been knifed by some 
powerful lieutenant before so many years 
had slipped by. His strength was proven 

97 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

in the House days. One cannot say that 
what he did was dramatic, but his record 
shows that he was steady, dependable, re- 
liable, sure. 

As a plain man of the people he re- 
ceived his appointment to the Senate. 
Back of him stood no railroad, and no 
trust contributed Crcesus-like funds to his 
helpers. He did not take his election and 
his orders from special interests. He 
claimed and won the suffrage of his 
people by his display of the uncommon 
quality of common sense which appeals 
to the broad-minded Westerners. His 
rise was steady and sure. He was known 
as a regular — as one who did not go 
too far ahead of his party. 

It was not until the late insurgent 
unpleasantness that the regular Senator 
Dolliver became a rampant raging insur- 
gent. And even then he was, in the eyes 

9 8 



JONATHAN PRENTISS DOLLIVER 

of his people, a regular. To them his 
insurgency was regular Republicanism. 
The old party men of the Cannon and 
Aldrich type were the enemies of what 
is regular. 

To vote " No " to the Aldrich Bill took 
nerve for all of that. Only a few Repub- 
licans dared do it. Only those who were 
the real representatives could do it. Those 
who were shackled to special interests 
dared do nothing but obey the commands 
that came from the Aldrich-Cannon camp. 
Dolliver was not one of these. 

Senator Dolliver is one of the truly 
great men of Iowa. He is big in body 
and big in brain. With the wide prairie 
vision he sees all things. He is not a 
local man in the narrow sense, as so many 
of our New England representatives are 
likely to be, but works for the best in- 
terests of the whole country. Like the 

99 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

rest of his brothers in the insurgent ranks, 
he is without wealth. His home in Fort 
Dodge is unpretentious but comfortable. 
He was married to Miss Louise Pearsons 
on November 20, 1895, and is the father 
of three children. He is a lecturer of 
proven power, a helper of young men, a 
lawyer of much ability, and always has 
the power to see the funny side of things. 
From the standpoint of steadiness he is, 
perhaps, the best leader in the insurgent 
ranks. He does not irritate. He has the 
power to make and hold friends. Even 
his opponents do not hate him with that 
undying hatred inspired by some of his 
colleagues. In the Senate his great bulk, 
his great voice, and his great mind fit him 
to take a place far ahead of those silken 
representatives of Plutocratic Interests 
who must remain chained to their corpo- 
ration kennels. Senator Dolliver may 

100 



JONATHAN PRENTISS DOLLIVER 

roam abroad and acquire for himself the 
help that is forever being offered to 
those whose only desire is to serve the 
majority. Senator Dolliver is a servant 
of the many. 



101 



ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE 




Albert J. Beveridge 



ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE 

TT7HEN Albert J. Beveridge, as the 
* ™ head of his own personally con- 
structed and personally conducted politi- 
cal machine, secured for himself the 
election to the United States Senate, a 
newspaper reporter sent into the state 
to see for himself what was really hap- 
pening found that the Beveridge adher- 
ents were not mere enthusiasts, but were 
as fanatical in their loyalty as those 
followers of Mahomet who, at the mere 
command of their leader, flung themselves 
into the ditches before Constantinople so 
that their fellows might march over their 
bodies to victory. 

It is always somewhat dangerous to 
indulge in the joy of weaving a long sen- 

105 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

tence, but when the sentence is started 
with the name of Senator Beveridge and 
ends with victory, it matters little how 
many literary bypaths one must travel to 
reach the period. 

As one when given the segment of a 
circle may complete the circle, so one may, 
by being given a segment of the youthful 
biography of a man, construct a fairly 
perfect circle of the man's life. 

Beveridge, like most of those insuring- 
gentlemen who have achieved their suc- 
cess as champions of popular government, 
found himself as a youth equipped with a 
plentiful stock of poverty. His father 
had tried to support his family on a poor 
sort of a farm on the border of Adams 
and Highland counties in Ohio. There, 
on October 6, 1862, Albert J. was born. 
The father and brothers fought on the 
Union side in the Civil War, after which 

106 



ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE 

unpleasantness a new home was found in 
Illinois. 

It matters little whether a young man 
be equipped or unequipped with material 
wealth, but it matters much what wealth is 
stored in his mind and body. If judged by 
the standards set by Dun and Bradstreet, 
Beveridge was worse than bankrupt. His 
poverty was like that encountered by Bris- 
tow in his youth. It was that stineine 
kind that whipped him like a lash and 
drove him out to work. It filled his soul 
with such terrors that he flung himself 
feverishly into labor that would purchase 
comforts. And yet this poverty was a 
good thing. The law of compensation will 
persist in working. There is no greater 
developer of character than doing the 
work involved in earning a living. Not 
only is this proven by Beveridge, but a 
study of the biographies of others .who 

107 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

have climbed high from great depths will 
disclose this same fact. The youth who is 
flung into the stream and left to sink or 
swim will, if there be the ghost of man- 
hood in him, swim in safety to the nearest 
shore. Beveridge was tossed into the 
stream of life by the clawing hands of 
Poverty. 

At twelve he was a farm laborer and 
followed the plow. Work in a railroad 
crew claimed him two years later. We 
find him in a lumber camp at fifteen, driv- 
ing team and using his glorious young 
strength in handling heavy walnut logs. 
A year later he showed his genius for 
managing men as foreman of the camp 
— a mere boy bossing men old enough to 
be his father. And always we find him 
studying — preparing himself for some- 
thing better. 

Manual labor claimed him all summer 

1 08 



ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE 

and late into the fall. Then, with a wee 
bit of money saved up, he went to school. 
He worked his way through high school 
in this way, his great physical strength 
developed by manual labor fitting him for 
the ravenous way in which he studied to 
satisfy his mental hunger. Working with 
his hands and thinking while he worked 
had cleared his mind. His brain was like 
a sun-parched desert in a rain-storm. He 
drank in knowledge and retained it. 

Without money, except for fifty dollars 
which a kind old man in his home town 
loaned him, he entered De Pauw Univer- 
sity at Greencastle, Indiana. David Gra- 
ham Phillips, the author, was a fellow 
student. Phillips says that in those days 
Beveridge was different from the rest of 
the fellows. He was odd. He was a 
rather short, heavy-set youngster, his 
well-developed muscles playing beneath a 

109 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

baggy suit. His face was somewhat pal- 
lid, but keen and alert. His gray-blue 
eyes looked out from under a big mop of 
long, fair hair. His voice was penetrat- 
ing, one that could be heard above the 
roar of a stream and logs that crashed 
into one another. It was a voice that com- 
pelled one to listen. It irritated one until 
one became accustomed to it. 

Seeing Beveridge, or meeting him for 
the first time, one would be inclined to dis- 
like him, not because there was about him 
something that aroused dislike, but be- 
cause he was odd and not easily classified. 
After one knew him one could not help 
liking and admiring him. 

In college he was known as the greatest 
worker and the wisest loafer in the place. 
The schedule of study he had arranged 
for himself would have killed any ordi- 
nary man. He limited himself to four 

no 



ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE 

hours of sleep a night, taking more sleep 
as many a student would take some ordi- 
nary form of college recreation. 

But this does not mean that Beveridge 
was a " grind " ; that is, he was not one 
of those stoop-shouldered, bespectacled, 
narrow-chested fellows who win scholas- 
tic honors and then get a job in a corner 
grocery or die of consumption. Beveridge 
had just as much fun as the rest of his 
fellows. The difference consisted in this: 
after the prank was past Beveridge would 
settle down to his work, while the others 
would gather together and talk about the 
fun they had had. 

He was a good executive, a good organ- 
izer. He owned but one thing in those 
days, and that one thing he invested so as 
to earn for himself the largest returns. 
Time was his one capital. He wasted no 
minutes. When he worked, he worked; 

in 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

when he played, he played. He never 
dawdled. It used to be a cause of wonder 
to his mates when he disposed of his 
school work and then stepped in and ran 
the politics of his fraternity and the liter- 
ary society to which he belonged. Mr. 
Phillips says that often he has seen Bev- 
eridge going off into the woods in the 
morning to practice speaking before the 
rest of the students were astir. 

It is little wonder that he won about all 
the college oratorical prizes. He worked 
for them harder than any one else. While 
he had native ability, he had something in 
addition which others did not possess. He 
had perseverance, patience, and stick-to- 
it-iveness. It was good business for him 
to win prizes. He needed the money to 
pay his expenses. In his junior year he 
brought to De Pauw the state oratorical 
prize, defeating speakers from all the big 

112 



ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE 

colleges in Indiana. The coveted inter- 
state oratorical prize became his in his 
senior year. He had to compete with the 
best orators of the great colleges of the 
Middle West and Northwest. The news 
of his victory set his fellows aflame with 
enthusiasm. At the depot to meet him on 
his return he found the president and fac- 
ulty, the band, his cheering fellow stu- 
dents, and an equally enthusiastic crowd 
of townspeople. One who was present 
says that " Bev " tried to ride in that spe- 
cial carriage by the side of the president 
without showing his self-consciousness, 
but that every one forgave him his fail- 
ure to hide his feeling of importance. 

During his first vacation he went out to 
earn money as a book agent. He was so 
successful that the company gave him 
charge of training a special students sales 
force the following year. The book was 

113 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

a history of religions and was called 
" Error's Chains. " For months before 
school closed this force of persuasive 
gentlemen rattled around Greencastle 
practicing for the summer campaign. It 
is reported that no college crew sold more 
books or made more money than the one 
led by Beveridge that second summer. 
Every sitting-room table was thereafter 
qualified to pass any kind of an examina- 
tion in the history of religions. 

After graduation the publishers tried 
their best to make Beveridge a permanent 
member of their force. But he refused 
their offer, even though he needed the 
money as he needed few other things. His 
health was broken by the years of study- 
ing and the strain of earning a living. To 
get back his health was his first task. This 
he accomplished by going West and be- 
coming a cowboy. When he returned 

114 



ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE 

East, he entered the law office of McDon- 
ald & Butler of Indianapolis as clerk. Old 
Senator McDonald was interested in the 
youngster and believed in him. A year 
later the old man called him in and told 
him he was appointed managing clerk. 

1 But I have n't the necessary experi- 
ence," exclaimed Beveridge. 

"That's all right, Albert," answered 
the old attorney; "if we are willing to 
take a chance, you should be." 

This really made the youngster a junior 
partner and threw him actively into the 
practice of his profession. His legal op- 
ponents were big men. But Beveridge 
himself, in spite of his youth, was poten- 
tially a big man. The power of his intel- 
lect and the force of his personality were 
felt. It was right in the midst of a big 
trial that the date set for his marriage fell. 
So well liked was the youth that the judge 

"5 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

gladly closed the court so that the mar- 
riage might go on as planned. Thus, on 
November 24, 1887, two years after his 
graduation from De Pauw, he was 
married to Miss Katherine Langsdale, a 
classmate. Mrs. Beveridge died June 18, 
1900. Seven years later in Berlin, Ger- 
many, on August 7, Senator Beveridge 
was married to Miss Katherine Eddy of 
Chicago. 

His first great legal victory was in what 
is known as the Pennsylvania cases. The 
Pennsylvania Railroad contended that the 
state of Indiana had no right to tax prop- 
erty not owned in the state. Beveridge 
fought this case through and won a 
signal victory for Indiana by placing 
one hundred and fifty million dollars' 
worth of railroad property on its tax 
rolls. Although interested chiefly in civil 
cases, Beveridge would sometimes break 

116 



ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE 

his rule and do work in the criminal 
court. 

It was during the great Blaine cam- 
paign in 1884 that Beveridge made his 
first political speeches. Thus he became 
identified with politics a year before his 
graduation from college. From that time 
on he never lost his interest in the govern- 
ment, although he made no attempt to 
secure political office for himself. He 
studied the political situation and found 
that the machine in his state was about as 
corrupt a thing as could be discovered in 
the country. He then set out to break the 
machine power. To do this he organized 
his own machine, forming it out of the 
young men. Here he displayed his genius 
for organization. These young voters he 
welded together so that nothing could pull 
them apart. Year after year they grew in 
strength. Year after year they made their 

117 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

power felt. Finally, in 1899, they placed 
their leader in a chair in the United States 
Senate, giving him his first and only office. 
According to the all-wise Mr. Dooley, 
Beveridge's first Senate speech was " wan 
you cud waltz to." It won him the nick- 
name of " the boy orator." Coming from 
the youngest member, it aroused the old- 
sters to attempt to kill him off, to smother 
him, to snub him, to put him in what they 
in their godlike wisdom thought was his 
place. But nothing could stop Beveridge. 
He remained the same buoyant, fresh, and 
bubbling speaker. When he arose to talk, 
the ladies crowded into the galleries. He 
was a hero to the women. But many of 
the older men disliked him. Senator Pet- 
tus, with more than eighty years behind 
him, once arose and delivered a speech 
which was such a farcical imitation of a 
regulation Beveridge offering that the 

118 



ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE 

Senate was convulsed with laughter. But 
that laughter affected Beveridge about as 
much as a gentle shower would affect a 
duck. He could not be squelched. 

Yet only those who did not know the 
man disliked him. Newspaper men who 
came to the capital prepared to dislike him 
went away with a feeling of admiration 
and personal liking. They recognized the 
real man in him. His seriousness, his 
mannerisms, his Samuel Smiles preach- 
ments — all these were forgotten in the 
sunshine of his man-like presence. And 
then he was a man of intellect. Those 
who engaged him in debate with the hope 
of easily trampling upon him found too 
late that he was a master. More than once 
has Senator Bailey been driven frantic by 
the querulous questioning. To debate suc- 
cessfully with Beveridge one must know 
all about the subject in hand and a little bit 

119 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

more. Beveridge, like a battleship in war 
time, always has his decks cleared for 
action. 

Few men have gone to Washington with 
more enthusiasm. It was his enthusiasm, 
his fire, his serious and insistent activity, 
that the old fellows could not understand. 
Besides, he was guilty of the crime of 
being young. To most folks wisdom is 
synonymous with age. Those old politi- 
cians in Washington could not see that 
Beveridge had made up in intensity and 
variety what he lacked in years. As a 
man may more easily learn golf by study- 
ing the principles governing every stroke 
instead of going out and hitting the ball 
all over the lot without using his head, so 
Beveridge studied politics and government 
scientifically and basically, while others 
were trusting to time and experience to 
give them their training. That is why he 

120 



ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE 

has remained in the Senate, his position 
practically unchallenged, since 1899. 

From his pictures one would judge Sen- 
ator Beveridge to be tall. In height, as a 
matter of fact, he measures but five feet 
eight inches. His weight is one hundred 
and fifty-eight pounds. He still has that 
boyish look and has not lost his old bubbly 
enthusiasm or his buoyancy. His books 
show him to be more than a politician. 
His knowledge is not limited to facts about 
this country. He has browsed in his 
studies over the entire world. During the 
Russo-Japanese War a series of articles 
in a magazine showed his grasp of the 
Eastern situation. His books written to 
help young men may be found in nearly all 
the libraries of the country. 

That he is a man with a heart is proved 
by his attitude toward the child-labor 
question. He has fought consistently to 

121 






HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

save the children from wage slavery and 
give them the play and the education which 
he himself lacked in his youth. His speech 
on the work of Frances Willard stamps 
him as a man who loves and understands 
women. His articles on the Bible show 
his broadness and the wholesomeness of 
him, while his stand on all public questions 
is proof of the fact that he understands 
what the people want and of his desire to 
serve their best interests. 

Senator Beveridge became a good man 
first, and, as is natural, he could not and 
has not failed to be a good Senator. Esti- 
mating him as an all-around man, he must 
be graded close to one hundred per cent. 



122 



VICTOR MURDOCK 




Victor Murdock 



VICTOR MURDOCK 

TN spite of his shock of red hair, his 
■*" reputation as a fighting insurgent, his 
two hundred and ten pounds, his broad 
shoulders and deep chest, the keenest de- 
sire of Victor Murdock's life is not to 
win a place for himself as a statesman or 
politician, but to write one successful play 
or a book that will live after he is gone. 

He can think of no joy keener than that 
which comes to a man who has written a 
successful play and stands before a howl- 
ing, cheering, enthusiastic mob in response 
to wild calls for the author. That he has 
become known in every state in the union 
as a fighter for popular government, and 
is looked upon everywhere as an uncom- 
promising enemy of the machine governed 

125 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

by concentrated wealth, is a matter of as 
much surprise to him as it is to those who 
know of his literary ambition. 

When a boy he was not particularly 
interested in politics. Unlike Bristow, he 
did not choose a political career. Even 
in his boyhood days his dream was of lit- 
erary instead of political conquests. When 
he was ten years old, he was trying to 
write plays that would relegate Shake- 
speare to the amateur class. As soon as 
he was old enough he helped around his 
father's printshop, and at fifteen was earn- 
ing a salary as a reporter. 

During his boyhood he read everything 
that he felt would form his style. He did 
not have to be driven away from the five- 
cent novels, because he was so serious in 
his ambition that he refused to contami- 
nate his literary equipment with reading 
that did not measure up to the highest 

126 



VICTOR MURDOCK 

standard. Like many another literary 
person, he took himself and his writing 
very seriously. His world was a very 
small one, in spite of his newspaper work, 
and he had visions of going forth and 
tossing it about as other youngsters did 
a rag ball on the town lot. 

Kipling, as Murdock insisted on think- 
ing, was famous at twenty-three. Chat- 
terton had earned the title of " that mar- 
velous boy " when he was little more than 
a child. Shelley and Keats had written 
their names imperishably when they had 
scarcely trembled past their teens. Mur- 
dock burned to emulate them, to write 
something that would stir men's souls 
like organ chords. 

With the irresponsibility of genius he 
was married before he was twenty. Miss 
M. P. Allen was the daring maiden who 
believed in him and in his dreams. At 

127 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

that time he could not be entered at any 
county fair as a malefactor of great 
wealth. His father, on whose paper he 
worked as reporter, paid him only nine 
dollars a week. After his marriage he 
went to his father and pointed out, in 
what he thought was a businesslike man- 
ner, the necessity for having more money. 

" You are paying your bookkeeper 
twenty-two dollars a week, while I, a lit- 
erary man, am forced to support myself 
and wife on nine paltry dollars. It is n't 
fair." So argued Victor. 

His father, however, was of a different 
opinion. He was perfectly willing to as- 
sist Victor as a son, but as a reporter on 
his paper he could not figure out that 
good business demanded the payment of 
more than nine dollars. He kindly and 
patiently and painstakingly pointed out to 
Victor that the bookkeeper was a man of 

128 



VICTOR MURDOCK 

parts, a necessity, a valuable servant, that 
it would be difficult to get another like 
him, while reporters could be picked up 
by the gross in any village in the country. 
Thinking that his literary abilities were 
not rated high enough in the Wichita 
market, the young couple journeyed to 
Chicago, arranged their few belongings 
in one room, prayed to the gods that 
watch over the destinies of literary per- 
sons, and then Victor went out and got 
a job on a newspaper that paid him twenty- 
two dollars a week at the start, not count- 
ing, of course, such expenses as a reporter 
meets with in the performance of his 
duties. The imagination of the reader 
may be trusted to picture the glee of the 
son as he sat himself down to write a 
letter to his father. 

On the Chicago papers Murdock made 
good. He not only held his initial posi- 

129 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

tion as long as he wanted it, but climbed 
ahead into positions that paid more money 
and enabled him to do more important 
work. Fate played a merry jest upon him 
when he was assigned to political duty. 
He had always hated politics, but the duty 
of a reporter is to perform all duties as- 
signed him without question, and Murdock 
shouldered political burdens as though it 
were a pleasure. 

He not only saw the working of local 
politics through the eyes of a reporter, 
but met and associated with big men in 
the world of government. For his paper 
he traveled with William McKinley, and 
learned to love the man for his innate 
goodness and gentleness even before he 
attained national prominence. In 1894 
his father gladly welcomed him home to 
Wichita, and he became managing editor 
of "The Wichita Eagle," holding that 

130 



VICTOR MURDOCK 

position until 1903, when he was elected 
to the Fifty-eighth Congress to fill a 
vacancy. 

His first splurge into politics as a can- 
didate was made with as little prepara- 
tion on his part as his initial plunge into 
political reporting. There were eighteen 
candidates for the office of Congressman 
when the foreman of " The Daily Eagle," 
Murdock's mother, and other intimate 
friends and relatives asked him why he 
did not try for the place. He refused 
to consider it. But the friends would not 
take no for an answer. A family confer- 
ence was called, and all voted in favor of 
the Murdock candidacy. In opposition, 
standing out alone like the Rock of 
Gibraltar, was Murdock's father. " How 
any man is fool enough to leave the office 
of a paper which speaks daily to thou- 
sands of readers, in order to become a 

131 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

picayunish Congressman, is something I 
don't pretend to understand. The editor 
of a daily paper is a bigger man any old 
day than any Congressman that was ever 
foaled." That was the paternal verdict. 

Victor, however, went with the major- 
ity, announced his candidacy, and, to his 
own surprise, won the appointment. He 
went to Congress without any idea of 
posing as a reformer. His attitude was 
that of a newspaper man instead of that 
of a statesman or politician. He really 
was not interested particularly in any- 
thing but the news value of what he saw. 

What he did see interested him. He 
saw that Congressmen, for the most part, 
are mere puppets, that a ring ruled the 
place, that the Speaker was an autocrat, 
that no one could speak without begging 
for the privilege, and then only after tell- 
ing in advance what was to be the sub- 

132 



VICTOR MURDOCK 

ject of the speech. Murdock saw all these 
things and more. For himself he was not 
indignant. Rather was his indignation 
that of a newspaper man who is inter- 
ested more in getting a good story than 
in bringing about a reform. The reform 
comes second. 

Murdock wrote a story that was a 
stinger. Before sending it, however, he 
showed it to the political leader of his 
state, then in the Senate. He was advised 
to tear the story up, become a good In- 
dian, and remain mentally hobbled on 
the reservation. Being unused to Wash- 
ington and relying somewhat upon the 
advice of his political superior, the story 
found its way into the wastebasket. For 
several years he remained a good Indian. 
Then, since he had been appointed to the 
Postal Committee, he discovered what he 
thought was a mere error in bookkeeping. 

l 33 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

He remembered what his father had told 
him about the importance of bookkeepers, 
and he thought that he might perform a 
real service by pointing out the mistake. 

Up to 1878 no mail had been carried 
on the railroads on Sunday. The rail- 
roads were paid for hauling the mail by 
the weight of the mail carried. This 
weight was arrived at by weighing the 
mails for six days and then dividing the 
total by six so as to get the daily aver- 
age. The next step was to multiply the 
daily weight by the number of days — 
counting six to the week — in the mail- 
hauling year. 

That was all right up to 1878. But 
after that mail was hauled on Sunday. 
The divisor, however, remained the same. 
Murdock pointed out that the divisor 
should be seven. No attention was paid 
to him. He insisted that a mistake had 

134 



VICTOR MURDOCK 

been made. His insistence forced the 
matter into public notice. Then, and not 
until then, did he learn that there was no 
mistake in bookkeeping, but that for years 
government officials had been sharing in 
the graft. After a strenuous fight the 
divisor was made seven, and Murdock 
felt a certain thrill of pride over knowing 
that his discovery had saved the govern- 
ment about five million dollars a year. 

That awakened him to the evil in gov- 
ernment affairs, and so he was prepared 
to take his place among the leaders of the 
congressional insurgents during the late 
congressional session. He voted against 
the Aldrich-Payne bill all the time, and 
was a sworn enemy of Speaker Cannon 
and that kind of congressional domina- 
tion known as Cannonism. 

Murdock was born on March 18, 1871, 
in Burlingame, Kansas, and has always 

x 35 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

lived in the state except during his repor- 
torial period in Chicago. His education 
was received in the common schools and 
at Lewis Academy, Wichita, but the best 
training came through his newspaper 
work and because of his keen desire to 
write something that would live. Mrs. 
Murdock has always been his helper and 
his pard, while two daughters have come 
to brighten their home. 

To all but those who hate insurgents, 
Victor Murdock is likable, being gifted 
with a certain insinuating charm of man- 
ner that wins confidence. His newspaper 
work has trained him to see that which 
is hidden from the majority. He knows 
much of the crookedness of politics, yet 
in spite of this knowledge he is an op- 
timist through and through. He has a 
big mouth through which to send forth 
a pleasing oratorical voice, and there is 

136 



VICTOR MURDOCK 

that about him which impresses one with 
his solidity and general wholesomeness. 
He has fought against Cannonism, not 
for personal glory or for a higher office, 
but because he believes that it is the only 
thing for an honest representative of the 
people to do. 

If he had his own way, political posi- 
tions would be forgotten, and he would 
settle down to his newspaper work with 
a sigh of content, and would work to 
materialize that dream of his which calls 
for the writing of a successful play that 
will call forth the frantic cheers of the 
crowd and the wild cry for " The author ! 
author ! " 



137 



MILES POINDEXTER 



/ 




Miles Poindexter 



MILES POINDEXTER 

O ENT to Congress on a well-advertised 
^ anti-Cannon promise, Miles Poindex- 
ter violated all the sacred rules governing 
precedent by becoming a national figure 
during his first term. He represented a 
district containing thirty thousand square 
miles, which embraces the eastern half of 
the state of Washington, and his was the 
first Western fight in which Cannonism 
was the main issue. The only promise 
asked by his constituents was that he fight 
against the Cannon rule. How well he 
obeyed is a matter of national record. He 
speedily took his place as a leader in the 
counsels of the insurgents, and was an 
important and powerful influence in giv- 

141 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

ing the Speaker his first rude shove to the 
rear. 

Miles Poindexter was born in Memphis, 
Tennessee, three years after the close of 
the Civil War. His warrior blood comes 
from his father, who proudly wore the 
gray in the great conflict. He attended 
the Fancy Hill Academy in Virginia, and 
later was graduated from Washington 
and Lee University, carrying off class 
honors. 

Like the course of empire of which the 
poet sings, he took his Western journey. 
He was then twenty-three years old. 
This, for the information of those hungry 
for figures, was in 189 1. He was equipped 
to practice law, but if his mental condition 
had been as unfinished as his physical ap- 
pearance, his path would have been down- 
ward instead of in the opposite and, as 
folks contend, the better direction. For 

142 



MILES POINDEXTER 

he was a gawky, ungainly, elongated sort 
of individual, whose chief occupation 
seemed to be to find a place for his feet 
and hands. Pendleton, Oregon, was his 
first home. There he demonstrated that, 
in spite of his un-Gibsonlike appearance, 
he was a veritable Apollo in beauty and 
strength of mind. 

Like Damon and Pythias, two ancient 
history, or, if you prefer, mythical charac- 
ters whose business was to impersonate 
manly friendship, Miles Poindexter and 
Tom Page drifted together. Walla Walla, 
which is not far from Pendleton, was the 
home of the mother and sisters of Tom 
Page, who used to ride over every Sunday 
morning for midday gustatory purposes, 
as well a^ for that spiritual and mental 
enrichment which is supposed to be found 
among the winnings of a son who fre- 
quents the neighborhood of his mother 

J 43 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

and sisters. One Sunday Poindexter was 
persuaded to go along. That is how he 
met Elizabeth Gale Page, who brightened 
his life by marrying him not so many 
months later. 

Pendleton had grown too small for the 
ambitious young lawyer, and Walla Walla 
became his home for six years, while he 
stepped up to the prosecuting attorneyship 
of the county. After the Walla Walla 
period, or, to bound this with time, thirteen 
years ago, he moved to Spokane and for 
six years was deputy prosecuting attorney. 
He was next elected to the superior bench 
as joint judge of two counties. Here he 
made a splendid record. His decisions 
had in them so much of the element of 
justice. Back of all of them were years 
of careful study and trained judgment. 
His knowledge had not come to him out of 
the air. He had earned it by sleeping but 

144 



MILES POINDEXTER 

five hours each night and making use of 
the other hours of darkness in reading 
classics, history, fiction, philosophy — to 
him everything was grist for his mental 
mill. His knowledge is encyclopaedic. 

He resigned his judgeship to enter the 
congressional campaign when the congres- 
sional place was made vacant by the ele- 
vation of Wesley L. Jones to the United 
States Senate. There were a number of 
aspirants. Six or seven of them spent 
most of their time trying to win the sup- 
port of Frank Post, attorney for the big 
corporations, who was commonly reported 
as a man of political power. Poindexter 
took the opposite tack. He sent some 
of Post's friends around to him to per- 
suade him to announce himself opposed 
to Poindexter. That showed the people 
that Poindexter was not looking for the 
friendship of the corporations. 

145 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

Poindexter's strength consists in his 
honesty, straightforwardness, courage of 
conviction, equipment of basic knowledge, 
convincing sincerity, and his dogged and 
persistent policy of doing what seems to 
him to be the right thing for the good of 
the greater number. In his campaign he 
travels on horseback over his district and 
talks man to man with the voters. He im- 
presses them with the fact that he is one 
of them — anyhow, it is certain that his 
personal power put to rout six of his 
opponents. 

Oratory is not to be found in the equip- 
ment of this insurgent. But what he lacks 
in fieriness and dramatic power he makes 
up in clearness, conciseness, logic, and 
earnest sincerity. He speaks just as he 
thinks. Unlike many another good poli- 
tician, he has no machine. He realizes 
that to construct a strong political ma- 

146 



MILES POINDEXTER 

chine promises and pap must be given to 
hangers-on. He goes without a machine 
by resting his case with the people them- 
selves. He is reported to be his own 
manager and board of strategy. In his 
campaigns he seems to have no secrets. 
He evades nothing. Those in doubt can 
find out where he stands by asking him. 

Like Norris and LaFollette, his home 
life is as clear as a crystal. He has no 
money to spend in living a gay life, nor, 
were he possessed of great wealth, has he 
the desire to live otherwise than as he does. 
He lives on the outermost edge of Spo- 
kane, on a little farm. His home is filled 
with books. When at home, he milks his 
own cow, feeds his own chickens — lives 
like any sane man who loves to recreate 
himself by living close to the soil. 

This man is not a lover of fighting. But 
when there is a fight to be fought, and he 

J 47 



HEROES OF INSURGENCY 

is needed in it, he is there with all the 
power of brain and body. He is blessed 
with the far-famed Southern nerve. It 
required nerve of the purest kind for the 
light he waged as the first Western insur- 
gent. It has taken nerve all through the 
strenuous congressional days. The other 
members of the Washington delegation, 
while liking Poindexter personally, were 
wholly out of sympathy with him in his 
insurging. But Poindexter has asked 
neither favors nor quarter and has gone 
forward doing his duty as he under- 
stands it. 

He stands with Pinchot on the conser- 
vation question, and believes that Roose- 
velt is the man needed to help the people 
win their battle against that entrenched 
power which Cannon represents in the 
House and which Aldrich represents in the 

Senate. 

148 



MILES POINDEXTER 

In his senatorial campaign his platform 
contained three planks: amendment of 
the tariff laws to reduce the cost of living- : 
support of the Pinchot policy toward con- 
servation of national resources, and the 
enactment of such national legislation as 
the " drys " have requested. On the latter 
he argues that the smaller centers of popu- 
lation and the rural districts should be free 
to choose whether they will permit the 
entry of liquor. 

Poindexter is one of the great men of 
the Far West. His place, whether he wins 
or loses in his fights for office, will ever 
be one which accords with the philosophy 
of the square deal. 



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